SMOKED OUT

Wise words from Rob Salkowitz over at Emphasis Added:

To me, the anti-smoking movement symbolizes everything wrong with the American cultural left. There are very good public health and economic reasons to discourage smoking and there is an airtight argument, so to speak, about why service workers in the food industry should not be exposed to cigarette smoke as a workplace safety issue. But these are rarely the reasons the most passionate anti-smokers give for their activism on the issue.

Most of them just don’t like cigarettes. They don’t like the smell, they don’t like tobacco companies, and, at base, they don’t like the kind of people who smoke. Smoking is synonymous with habitual stupidity, moral cowardice (for being unable to quit despite all the reasons to), and lack of consideration. Forcing smokers into a position of public shame and scorn validates the moral superiority of the non-smoker.

Click here for the rest.

This really reminds me of how the vast majority of anti-drug efforts aimed at teenagers are doomed to fail. Dangerous drugs, which include tobacco, are unhealthy--this is a fact. But the strong strain of morality running through anti-drug rhetoric takes a nuts and bolts public health issue and turns it into something that begs to be rebelled against. "Oh, so I'm a bad person if I do drugs? Well, fuck you; I'm doing drugs!" Personally, I believe that people respond much more intelligently when confronted with simple facts, and this includes teens, who seem to be almost grateful when adults treat them as fellow adults, capable of making important decisions by themselves. Smoking, doing drugs, these things aren't evil; they're simply unwise. Society would benefit greatly from a more rational discourse on the subject.

But then, that's why I like Salkowitz's writing so much: he's so damned rational!

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